He says he hates doing it and, yet, I suspect he secretly quite likes it.
He calls me. I am surprised to see he’s calling me. I check first, thinking that maybe my telephone called him (it does that these days, randomly calls him – it reminds me, daily, that I will NEVER have another Blackberry phone, piece of trash that it is) since it was only a few minutes ago that we were talking face-to-face, in the flat, him having just arrived home!
But, no, it’s not my phone calling him, he is really calling me. Perhaps, I think, he’s stepped outside for something and forgotten his keys? The door automatically locks.
“An is coming in a minute. Can you let her in, please?” he asks me.
“Where are you?” I am confused.
“I’m in the shower.”
It makes me laugh. But, even if he had shouted loudly, I wouldn’t have heard him. That’s the really nice thing about this flat.
An comes. She explains that she has come because she is on her way home for work and fancied a drink.
I assume that means they are going out but, as I have someone coming in a moment, I offer her a glass of red wine from a partly finished bottle that I had opened the other day. She accepts and sits down. i don’t offer to take her coat or anything as they will be going out.
My “someone” arrives. Luckily, F appears from the bathroom.
Me and my “someone” go to my room. Almost an hour and a half later, I can hear they’re still there and not out as I expected. Indeed, I need to just ask F something and so I go to find them. They are in the kitchen having soup. The soup that F made the day before.
When my “someone” leaves, I join them in the kitchen and get offered some soup. It’s leek and potato soup with grated Parmesan cheese and fried bacon bits on top. He is so proud of it. And rightly so, it is lovely.
He explains that An DID ask him to go for a drink but, as it is so cold and as she has no kitchen in her new flat, he suggested drink and soup at ours. It’s nice sitting at our new kitchen table with a friend. It’s very comfortable and easy. I can’t truly express how lovely it is to be entertaining friend(s) in the setting with home made soup and wine in our flat. And, more so because it is unexpected. No elaborate planning and work. Just simple and easy. I can see he is happy about it too. And about what he has cooked. Which is, in any case, really tasty – and I like the bacon bits on top.
The heating is turned on (slightly) and the kitchen is warm and inviting.
It’s exactly how it should be, the whole thing. Even better that, now, I can do my thing and he can entertain and I can join them when I’ve finished. All really perfect. Long may that continue.